Simple Stories, Real Results

Monthly Archives: June 2013

Leah Taylor is an accomplished marketing professional who helps people frame stories – about themselves, their careers and their companies – to set a marketing direction that makes sense and has a great chance of success.

Professional Services Marketing Experience

Leah has almost 20 years of experience advising and educating professionals to define and market their expertise. She has worked across industries including professional services, finance, not-for-profits and government.

Leah Taylor – Director
Straight Shooter Marketing

Leah has held senior marketing positions in these leading international and Australian organisations:

Ernst & Young

Baker & McKenzie

Victorian Department of Justice

Godfrey Pembroke Financial Planning

McLean Delmo Accountants & Business Advisers

Services

Straight Shooter Marketing will help you assess your marketing and communication activity and set you on track to reach your goals.

Marketing Coaching is available for individuals or organisations that need a cost-effective plan and some ongoing guidance, but are happy to take responsibility for the implementation of marketing activities.

Marketing Consulting is offered to businesses that need campaigns and programs developed and project managed from beginning to end.

All of the services are delivered with specific and practical advice for maximising the return on your investment. In other words, the aim is to have you using all that you have learned so that your investment pays for itself many times over.

Kyneton is a thriving country town between Melbourne and Bendigo in regional Victoria. Kyneton Community & Learning Centre provides a range of services covering education, care and community services for participants of all ages from Kyneton and the wider district.

KC&LC has an amazing group of dedicated staff and volunteers who are doing an incredible job building the range of services on offer and delivering these services at the highest level of quality.

Everyone in the Kyneton community is welcome at the centre. Yet, research revealed that while 90% of residents in the Kyneton district were aware that KC&LC existed, only 10% of them had used the services provided.

I worked with the Committee of Management and staff earlier this year to put together a sustainable and manageable grassroots strategic communication plan to help them achieve their business goals in the short and long term. The challenge is to engage the community through effective communication to encourage greater and ongoing participation in the centre.

Creative kids won prizes for their art.

The upcoming 25 year anniversary was a perfect way to kick off the KC&LC communication campaign. Committee members and staff implemented each element of the communication plan which involved running a community art competition, organising lots of local promotion and publicity, gathering sponsorships from local businesses, all culminating in a Community Open Day where residents were welcomed, fed and entertained as they visited the centre – many for the first time.

This is the first phase in the ongoing implementation of the strategic communication plan for KC&LC. As a not-for-profit (NFP) organisation, we agreed on a model where I am a Marketing Coach – I drafted the plan in consultation with key stakeholders – but the implementation is the responsibility of nominated members of the KC&LC team. I am always available to answer questions and support them as the projects progress. And I was very happy to attend their party, eat a piece of birthday cake and celebrate all the work that has already been done. Well done team!

I look forward to more trips to KC&LC as future phases of the Strategic Communication Plan are put into place.

Do you know someone who would benefit from Marketing Coaching? This is a great way to get your marketing approach on track, without the need for expensive ongoing consulting fees or retainers. Contact Straight Shooter today for more information.

In this post I am sharing an important article written by Tom Peters about brand. Whenever I am working with clients or running a seminar about branding, I give participants a copy of this article as food for thought.

Now I warn you, this is a long article and there is a lot to take in and think about. You will need some time – so stop, make yourself a cuppa, sit, read and highlight or make notes as you go through. If you get stuck, keep going or come back to it later. You might find something that resonates towards the end?

Your contact database is critical to your marketing approach. Who you know – and who you need to know – can make or break your business communication. So it is worthwhile dedicating some time to get organised about your contacts lists so that sharing your story is as efficient and effective as possible.

Step 1 – Who Do You Know?

Think about all the people you know – professionally and personally. Do you have all the information you need to contact them reliably and regularly?

Take a blank piece of paper and start writing down all the contact lists you already have:

Contacts in your phone

Email lists

Facebook friends

LinkedIn contacts

Blog followers

Event attendees

Customer lists

Others?

You may already have hundreds of contacts and I’m sure you can already think of ways of increasing this number.

Step 2 – Database Options

Now you need to find a way to bring all your contacts together and manage them.

There are endless databases options available to suit the size and requirements of your business. From fully integrated Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, cloud based solutions or just a simple Excel spreadsheet, you should choose a database that allows you to easily add and extract useful contact information.

Spend time to get the information ‘fields’ (i.e. title, first name, surname, email addresses, etc) and categories (i.e. clients, contacts, specific lists for newsletters, billing details, etc) right up front so you have all you need when you come to using the data for communication. Will you mostly be using email communication? Do you need postal addresses? Is there any purpose for capturing personal information such as birth dates or ages?

It is important to make sure you are across rules relating to privacy in your country or state – particularly for email and online communication – so you are not caught out sending unsolicited information. In Australia you need to provide a way for people to ‘opt-out’ or ‘unsubscribe’ from your mailing list if they no longer want to receive information from you.

Step 3 – Extending and Updating Information

A database is only as good as the information it contains – and it can quickly become outdated. Schedule some time each month to update your database and put processes in place to add new contacts as soon as possible.

Work out some simple strategies to ensure your database builds each month. Make sure you never lose an opportunity to get new data in so you can extend the reach of your communication, giving you access to even more potential clients and customers.